The Power Platform is Microsoft's collection of low-code, citizen developer solutions. Being low-code, makers don't need coding experience to build their apps, bots, automations, and/ or dashboards. Even so, makers still need to decide where their data should ultimately live. For most people, SQL is typically the go-to data storage consideration. And honestly, SQL isn't … Continue reading Power Platform: Data Sources | SQL Tables or SPO Lists
SPOList
Power Apps: Canvas App | SubmitForm() + SPOItem [Attachments w/ Permissions]
SharePoint Online lists are flexible as Power Apps canvas app data sources. Not quite as popular as SQL, but app makers can use SPO lists like database tables. One major perk of leveraging SPO lists, they're created ready to handle item attachments without makers needing to configure Azure BLOB storage. Still, there is a permission … Continue reading Power Apps: Canvas App | SubmitForm() + SPOItem [Attachments w/ Permissions]
MS Lists: Customize w/ JSON
Cost-conscious businesses typically have narrow profit margins. And because of that, they're likely hesitant to purchase too many third-party app licenses for their employees. Luckily though, if their employees are already licensed for Microsoft 365, then a handful of tech-savvy business users could build many of these apps in-house using Microsoft Lists. As the name … Continue reading MS Lists: Customize w/ JSON
Graph API: SPO List Items + Batch Delete
As previously explored, batching is the preferred and more efficient approach to processing a large volume of API requests. For every request, there is a call to the Microsoft Graph API and the accompanying response. With that in mind, things add up quickly as dozens, if not hundreds, of API requests are made. Batching bundles … Continue reading Graph API: SPO List Items + Batch Delete
MS Lists: Mail Merge Data Source
Mail merge is still a thing. Why? Because after all these years, it continues to get the job done. But with more businesses using Microsoft Lists, can mail merge still do its job? The short answer, yes. However, Microsoft Word can't connect to Microsoft Lists directly. If we open the mail merge data source dropdown, … Continue reading MS Lists: Mail Merge Data Source
Power Automate: SharePoint ODATA Filters
Microsoft Lists is growing in popularity. As the solution is augmented using Power Automate, citizen developers should know that [SharePoint Online] is the backend of Lists. With this in mind, remember that List flows are built using SPO triggers and actions. As these lists grow in size, large datasets need to be queried and iterated … Continue reading Power Automate: SharePoint ODATA Filters
Power Automate: SPO Item Version Delta
[SharePoint Online] is a well known document management solution. Baked into this Microsoft solution is metadata and versioning. In simplest terms, metadata is document tagging. Versioning is an audit trail of document changes - including document properties... Figure 1 - Version history of a SPO list item. Working with SPO, Power Automate has an action … Continue reading Power Automate: SPO Item Version Delta
Power Automate: Populate SPO User Claims (multiple claims)
Power Automate can add user accounts to SharePoint Online list items. If the person column accepts a single account, then the assignee claims are passed as a string. But for multiple accounts, the assignee claims are passed as an array. Illustrating this, loop through a list of approvers, then add them all to a list … Continue reading Power Automate: Populate SPO User Claims (multiple claims)
SharePoint Online: File Metadata w/ Graph API
Microsoft's Graph API has endpoints for [SharePoint Online] lists and libraries. Worthy of note, document libraries are /drives when using the APIs. And although libraries are technically lists, the two resources will return different properties for the same SharePoint object. Additionally, some actions can only be performed using the /lists resources. An example of this, … Continue reading SharePoint Online: File Metadata w/ Graph API
SharePoint Online: Metadata Scopes
[SharePoint Online] has a number of features and functionalities. Among these, there is robust support for metadata. But why support metadata? Because metadata helps flatten files, index content, and improve search results. And with this robust support, metadata can be created at several different levels. One way to visualize these scopes... Local Regional National Global … Continue reading SharePoint Online: Metadata Scopes
Power BI: SPOList – Records v. Tables
Power BI Desktop can connect to a variety of data sources, including [SharePoint Online] lists. The text, date, and numerical columns will map directly, but a Person column will become a Record... E.g., list column Approver is a Person. So, what are Records? These are indexed data structures. Similar to hash tables, tuples, and structs, … Continue reading Power BI: SPOList – Records v. Tables
Power Platform x SharePoint – Approval Requests: Part III (Power BI)
The Power Platform is a Microsoft offering of tools to help organizations meet challenges effectively. Among these tools, there are some notable standouts: Power Automate – Create automated business processes.Power Apps – Create custom forms and portals.Power BI – Create rich charts, graphs, etc. With their powers combined, one could easily build in-house solutions using … Continue reading Power Platform x SharePoint – Approval Requests: Part III (Power BI)
Power Platform x SharePoint – Approval Requests: Part II (Power Apps)
The Power Platform is a Microsoft offering of tools to help organizations meet challenges effectively. Among these tools, there are some notable standouts... Power Automate – Create automated business processes.Power Apps – Create custom forms and portals.Power BI – Create rich charts, graphs, etc. With their powers combined, one could easily build in-house solutions using … Continue reading Power Platform x SharePoint – Approval Requests: Part II (Power Apps)
Power Platform x SharePoint – Approval Requests: Part I (Power Automate)
The Power Platform is a Microsoft offering of tools to help organizations meet challenges effectively. Among these tools, there are some notable standouts... Power Automate - Create automated business processes.PowerApps - Create custom forms and portals.Power BI - Create rich charts, graphs, etc. With their powers combined, one could easily build in-house solutions using [SharePoint … Continue reading Power Platform x SharePoint – Approval Requests: Part I (Power Automate)
Training: SharePoint – 5000 Item Limit Threshold
### What The 5,000 items list view threshold is a limit on the number of items displayed in a single SharePoint view. This is NOT a limit on how many total items a list or library can hold. ### Why This is a performance restriction. Larger database queries require more resources and more processing. This … Continue reading Training: SharePoint – 5000 Item Limit Threshold